This is a problem that has been discussed on the list before, and is
mostly agreed on. See for example the thread "Re: We need an ECP (Error
Cleanup Project)". 

Avi, did you get somewhere interesting along these line?

Anyway, some of these problems can be solved without a generic solution,
and patches/ideas are welcome... :-)

Daniel

Rudi Angela <squeak at angelafamily.com> wrote:
> I have a problem with the way the progress bar is (was) used in the 
> Flash package, but the problem is more general.
> In general I consider it a bad idea to integrate UI specific parts in 
> code that is doing such low level things as reading a file. This is 
> exactly what the progress bar is doing in the flash reader. This makes 
> the low level code dependent on the higher level UI code, which is in 
> my view a bad thing.
> I would rather have a mechanism where the reader uses a model object 
> (e.g. a value holder or a more modern mechanism) which it keeps up to 
> date with respect to the progress. Developers can then decide based on 
> their specific use whether they need to show a progress bar or any 
> other applicable UI element, which gets its information by observing 
> the model.
> On the same grounds I disapprove of low level code setting the cursor, 
> which currently happens in certain file operations.
> I have developed an application with Squeak and have run into the above 
> problems a couple of times and found it very annoying. I ended up 
> adapting low level code just for the sake of my app's UI. This makes it 
> difficult for me to keep my app up to date with the latest image 
> version.
> I propose we start eliminating such code and wherever necessary replace 
> it by model events and such.
> 
> Rudi Angela
> 
> On dinsdag, aug 12, 2003, at 08:50 Europe/Amsterdam, Marcus Denker 
> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:07:48PM -0400, adspitz at yahoo.ca wrote:
> >> from preamble:
> >>
> >> "Change Set:		FlashCleanup
> >> Date:			31 July 2003
> >> Author:			Adam Spitz
> >>
> >> Recategorizes some stuff in order to turn the Flash code into a single
> >> PackageInfo package with no external dependents.
> >>
> >> Notice that this changeset lumps ProgressMorph in with the Flash 
> >> stuff.
> >> I think this is a bad idea, but I don't know what to do about it. Is
> >> there some reason why we shouldn't have a progress-bar thingy that
> >> doesn't depend on Flash?"
> >> !
> > Hmm... Diego posted a changeset long ago:
> >
> > [ENH] ProgressBarMorph-dgd ( [cd][er][et][sm][approved] )
> >
> > This cs does:
> >
> > - rename of FlashProgressMorph to ProgressBarMorph
> > - change of ProgressBarMorph (former FlashProgressMorph) class 
> > category to
> >   Morphic-Widgets
> > - update of references of FlashProgressMorph
> >
> > This will be included in 3.7a
> >
> >
> > -- 
> > Marcus Denker marcus at ira.uka.de  -- Squeak! http://squeak.de
> >
> >